Friday, December 17, 2010

*Editor Note - In an effort to highlight not only amazing political women, we are now starting a new segment that will introduce you to equally remarkable women in business, media, medicine, and other fields were women are often overlooked and underrepresented. So today we will kick off MediaGirl, with non other than Christina Norman, the CEO of OWN, the new Oprah Winfrey Network channel.

Monica Almeida/The New York Times

Name: Christina Norman

Age: 47

Job: CEO of Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN)

Background: In just a few weeks, Oprah Winfrey﻿ will launch her very own cable channel, The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) in conjunction with Discovery Channels. While the spotlight is on Oprah, there is another amazing woman standing beside her - Christina Norman. Ms. Norman is the CEO of the new channel which is set to go live on January 1, 2011 where she will guide the creative and business sides of the cable channel.

Credentials: Ms. Norman has a degree in film production from Boston University, but really earned her chops when she rose through the ranks at MTV. She started out as a production manager and after 17 years became president.

Takeaway: Christina Norman represents to me exactly what a mediagirl should be - smart and driven, while charting new lanes for women coming behind her. She also proves to me that you can have it all with just a little hard work. Not a business woman at the top of her game, she also is the wife and mother of two daughters. While I am anxious to see what Oprah will do with this new venture, I know she is in good hands with somebody like Christina Norman beside her.